


Olive’s Ghost

by BokhandlarnEmilie



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 2: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, F/F, Fanatical Fics's Halloween Competition 2020, Halloween
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:01:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27991182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BokhandlarnEmilie/pseuds/BokhandlarnEmilie
Summary: This was my entry to Fanatical Fic's Discord Halloween Competition 2020. It is meant to be a longer story but was shortened to 2000k words.Olive Hornby's grandchild Pepper is exited to finally start Hogwarts, fifty years after the first Chamber of Secrets Incident. It becomes clear to her that there is more to the story of what happened to Moaning Myrtle 50 years ago and her grandmother's teasing.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3





	Olive’s Ghost

July, Fifty Years After the first Chamber of Secrets Incident

When Pepper Hornby was excited, her mind tended to visualize the current situation many steps ahead. She imagined herself already up on her grandmother’s doorstep, knocking on the door for dear life. But in reality, she had to be patient as her crutches prevented her from running across the yard. As if by legilimens, her grandmother suddenly opened the door as if she had been waiting for them to arrive.  
“It’s here! It’s here! I got it! I got the letter” Pepper yelled from across the yard.  
“Wonderful” her grandmother shouted back. “I’ll prepare some tea and you take your time sweetie”.

As they sat on the sofa sipping their tea, Olive Hornby read her granddaughter’s acceptance letter to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.  
“I had no doubt in my mind that you would get the letter, but I am so happy for you!” She turned to her son and continued “Did you manage to find out what took them so long?”  
He stood up slowly, walked across the room and looked out of the window.  
“Oh yeah, apparently the owl had some delays caused by... erhm... her”  
“Her...” Olive sighed and looked at her wife, Xenia, who immediately understood. Even though she herself had gone to a different wizarding school than Hogwarts, she knew all about her.  
“So, Pepper dear, what are you most excited about for your first year?” she said, trying to change the subject  
“Well... I mean, learning magic, I especially want to learn how to do the accessibility spells myself, so I don’t have to ask adults all the time... What else... Harry Potter is a student there... and… I don’t know, just being there, I guess?”.  
“I can see that” Olive said and got a sudden glance of nostalgia in her eyes. “There are too many stories about that place to even begin to tell”   
Pepper thought for a moment about this before she said  
“Could you tell me one though, grandma?”  
“Oh sure! Which one would you like to hear?”  
Pepper took a deep breath before she spoke. She had prepared for this all summer and could not mess this up now.  
“Could you... Could you please tell me what really happened fifty years ago with Myrtle and the Chamber of Secrets?”

It went completely silent. A garden gnome who was currently stealing some sugar cubes dropped everything and ran at the sound of a teacup crashing to the floor. But no one seemed to notice. Olive did not know what to say. She searched around the room looking for help. Instead, her son said:  
“Actually mom... I kind of also want to know what happened. I think we all do. And Pepper has figured out all by herself that you were somehow involved. Let her know, let us all know... Please?”  
Olive thought long and hard.  
“Okay fine. I will tell you, but please, no judgement. I was young and scared, and I did not know a bloody monster would end her life, okay?” She picked up the broken teacup just to have something to do with her hands. No one helped her with a wand since they knew this action was not about cleaning as much as needing to fidget. She continued, “So, it started with me finding Myrtle crying”  
“And you teased her for her glasses?” Xenia interrupted.  
“Well no... I mean yes, but that was later... It started with us talking and... We kissed... It was one kiss, and we were never involved because not only did she die, she died because of me. I got scared, my friends would never approve, they called her Moaning Myrtle! They teased her, it looked like she was about to tell everyone what we had done, so I just threw out the first insult I could think off - her glasses...” Her son was about to interrupt that of all insults out there, that one did not seem to be a very big deal, but Olive put her hand up to silence him.  
“Her old glasses had broken, and her mom did not bother to find a nice pair. She became highly insecure and was crying because she believed that not only was she looking hideous, but that her mother did not love her. Before the kiss, I told her she looked beautiful in those glasses and that her mom’s love was reflected in them. So, me suddenly calling them ugly…”  
“And also” Pepper interrupted while looking down, “I don’t think you can tell people how they should handle being insulted, dad”. He looked embarrassed. “But you knew you made a mistake, right grandma? So why did you ban her to a toilet?”  
“I didn’t ban her to a TOILET, I got her banned to haunt the castle because... because” Olive took a deep sigh and continued her story...

Halloween that same year  
The first two months at Hogwarts had been fun for Pepper. She had immediately mastered Wingardium Leviosa which made Flitwick take interest in her and immediately proceed to teach her a spell that would make her crutches move along with the castle more smoothly. (“I too had to learn a lot of helpful spells since the castle is designed for people much taller than I. Come back whenever you want after class and I’ll show you all the accessibility tricks and spells of this castle”). She had also made friends, all of them in Ravenclaw like her although she tried to befriend people outside of her house as well. It was not easy though, but she tried.

While exiting the Ravenclaw common room, Pepper could already smell the food that was being prepared for the Halloween feast in the Great Hall. Her mouth started to water. She and her friends kept fantasizing about their first ever Halloween feast when suddenly, someone yelled “Look out!” and dragged her away from her spot. Mere seconds later, a pumpkin smashed right where she had been standing. Pepper looked up in shock and saw Peeves laughing. But in the corner, she also saw a hint of a young ghost floating away.

The incident made it difficult for her to focus during the feast and when they were finally walking back to the common room, her pace was much slower than her friends, who did not seem to notice. Did that ghost tell Peeves to drop the pumpkin on her on purpose? While reflecting on the incident, she saw a red-haired first year in the corner looking confused.  
“G…Ginny? It’s Ginny, right?” When meeting her eyes, Pepper noticed that Ginny was definitely not feeling well. She gave her an odd look, pushed her aside and started running along the corridor.   
Pepper tried to follow her out of concern but quickly lost her. She was now completely alone and decided to go back to the Ravenclaw common room.

When she got to the statue, she couldn't help but wonder if she should talk to someone about Ginny?  
“It was just so strange” she said out loud.  
“Sorry, that is incorrect” the statue said  
“Wait, what? I haven’t even answered the riddle yet!”  
“Please wait until someone else comes by”  
She sighed and sat down. Unbelievable! She sat for what felt like hours and tried to argue with the statue to repeat the riddle, which it refused to do, when she suddenly she heard a noise.  
“You know... For a Ravenclaw, you are not very clever, are you?”  
“Go AWAY Myrtle”  
“Go away? Where? To the TOILET your GRANDMOTHER forever banned me to?” The ghost said with a  
sob.  
“You know, she actually told me about you! And it was not the toilet, it was the castle so stop sobbing. But yeah, please go back to the toilet”.  
Myrtle kept floating through the Ravenclaw statue as if to taunt the first year.  
"Well, I can’t go back there now, can I? I was at a death day party you see, but I got mocked and had to run away. I was going to go back to my toilet but there was someone in there. So, I was just floating around, minding my own business when I saw no other than the grandchild of my bully sitting here arguing with a piece of stone”  
“Myrtle… She did not want to ban you. You know that”  
“Do I though?” She tried to pick some dirt from under her nails which must have been stuck there for fifty years now. But Pepper was not too familiar with ghost hygiene to be sure.  
“Look, you’re not the first person caught up in internalized homophobia leading to unnecessary teasing leading to someone running away and die unexpectedly by a mythical monster that may or may not exist”.  
Myrtle was quiet for a minute. Then she burst out laughing.  
“Your grandmother is not a victim here! She deserved having every date ruined. She deserved being haunted while coming out to her parents. She deserved me trying to interrupt her wedding with that Xylophone”  
“XENIA – and don’t talk about my grandmothers that way. She tried to make amends with you, to apologize but you were set on ruining every moment for her. When her father carried out the order to ban you, she cried so hard. My other grandma said she had never seen her so broken before. They postponed the wedding just to get her back to her old self… But you know as well as I that she never did become her old self”. Myrtle seemed to think about this for a second.  
“I’m still not forgiving her”  
“Fair enough. But can you stop whatever it is you are trying to do to me?” Pepper slowly got up from the floor.  
“Where are you going?”  
“I just need a walk. The floor is cold, and I can’t feel my butt anymore.”

It turned out that Myrtle was kind of nice once you got to know her. And it turned out that Pepper was probably not going to hurt her like Olive did all those years ago. When Myrtle finally got her chance to tell someone how toilets actually work and why they make good homes, Pepper listened with interest.  
“You know” Myrtle finally said as they rounded a corner, “no one has ever asked me if my death is connected to the Chamber of Secrets…”  
A part of Pepper wondered if she wanted to be asked. But probably because for some dramatic reason. Everyone knows that was just a hoax and it’s not like it’s going to happen again.  
“And you are not going to tell them if you know something?”  
“Not my problem, what’s done is done and if it were to happen again... It’s not like a ghost could fall victim to that monster. I’d love to see that happen…”  
“You’re cheery”  
“You’d be too if you could take a break from toilets and moody teenagers”.  
“Fair enough”.  
Myrtle felt bad though. She had been away from the toilet for too long. She knew it was not safe and she did her best to try to keep students away from that place.  
They suddenly heard a scream and hurried along the corridors until they reached the sound. Plenty of students and faculty were already there. Something about a murdered cat and “You’ll be next m**bloods”. When they finally got to the front, they could read something written on the wall in blood.

The Chamber of Secrets has been opened.  
Enemies of the heir… beware  
“Well… This can’t be good” Myrtle said.  
“No… It cannot”.


End file.
